Modern European Poetry introduced me to 50 percent of the poets now on my bookshelves. Although it seems to no longer be in print, you can still find it for a few dollars in used bookstores around the country. The anthology includes generous selections of poetry from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, and Spain (and some Latin American poets). It was edited by Willis Barnstone, Patricia Terry, Arthur Wensinger, Kimon Friar, Sonia Raiziss & Alfredo de Palchi, George Reavey, and Angel Flores (Flores is also responsible for Patti Smith's favorite, The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry and my favorite). My copy is the sixth edition from 1978 (Bantam; first published 1966).

Since writing about Seymour Chwast's dustjacket for Moravagine, I started to notice his work on books in my collection. Here are two:

--Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier, now reprinted by New York Review of Books, but here in a Time Life edition from 1965.

--The Symbolist Movement in Literature by Arthur Symons, in a Dutton paperback edition from 1958. Seems to be in print only by crappy public-domain-only reprint houses (I refuse to buy books from these publishers; you know who they are if you spend time searching for out-of-print books).

Here are two personal recommendations from Ian Nagoski. Check out some of the records he sells at the record store he co-owns in Baltimore, The True Vine. He's recently been traveling around talking about his collection of 78s, promoting his compilation on Dust-to-Digital, Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Music (see my post and learn more at the label's site). Ian also sells some books at his shop, as I clearly remember buying Harry Mathews' masturbation masterpiece Singular Pleasures there.

Ian has handed me various books and records in the ten years or so I've known him.

Visit my main site

I started "A Journey Round My Skull" in 2007 and killed it off in February 2011, transferring most of the archives to a shiny new site, "50 Watts." In December 2011, I revived My Skull as a personal blog.